Blaine strained against his shackles until both his hands and feet had gone numb from circulation restraint.  Adrenaline surged through him while he fought to pull himself free from the post holding him in place and get to Kurt.  Get to him… save him… stop them…. He could hear his fellow captives talking behind him, but he only registered bits and pieces of what they were talking about.

“... bobby pins….”
“... used his claw nails to lock them…”
“... just a bit more…”
“There!  Got it!”

The only thing Blaine could focus on was his lover being submerged, held in place by those beasts that seemed hell bent on taking away the only thing that truly mattered to Blaine.  It wasn't until there was a body at his side that Blaine realized there was more to the words being spoken by his comrades.

“Hold still… Let me get you free…”  Santana huffed, grabbing at one of the shackles around Blaine's wrist and poking one of her bent back bobby pins into the hole.  It fell off him a moment later, revealing the bruised and cut skin below it.  The other hand followed, and then his ankles, and soon he was rushing towards the Others and Kurt as fast as his legs could carry him.

That is until Santana grabbed him by the wrist and whipped him back.  “Come on.  We need to escape!”

“Kurt!”

“Is part Other… leave him and come on!”

Blaine wouldn't have it though, and he pulled his wrist free to continue towards Kurt.

“Oh fuck…”

The Others looked up just in time to see Blaine rushing into their midst, the Halfling barely having the time to pull her blade out as Blaine dived in to grab at Kurt's body, floating just below the surface of the water and scarily still.  Blaine wound his arms around him, and resurfaced, gasping for breath and turning to face what he was sure was his own death.  His rush to try and save Kurt when the rest of the community members were clearly going to flee ultimately meant his death. He wouldn't die though without trying to at least give Kurt a chance. He couldn't live without Kurt.  He didn't want to live without Kurt.

However, instead of being faced with a blade or claws, Blaine found that in the moment it took for him and Kurt to surface the rest of the community members had a change of heart and were fighting back against the surprised trio of Others.  Jeff and Santana had pinned down the white-eyed one, who was probably easy to contain since Kurt's presence somehow nulled out its powers.  Karofsky was whipping shackles around like a mace trying to hold off the hairy one - changed now into its gigantic wolf form, and Sam was running from the Halfling - probably the best strategy for dealing with that one.

It gave Blaine the opportunity to pull Kurt back to shore, glad for the fact they were in shallow water since he didn't know how to swim. He laid Kurt down and tried to remember the procedure for dealing with drowning.  It was covered in all the textbooks they had in the medic office in town, but they generally didn't pay much mind to.  In a place void of large bodies of water, drowning wasn't exactly a concern.  Blaine did recall watching enough movies in his youth though where someone saved someone else from drowning, and so he went about replaying those scenes in his mind as he pumped his hands down on Kurt's chest and then plugged his nose with one hand and pushed air into Kurt's mouth with his own.  

He did it once… two times….  and on the third attempt Kurt coughed and rolled to the side, vomiting out the water that had filled him while Blaine's heart flooded with relief.  He didn't see anything else in that moment but Kurt.  Kurt may have been puking up water, his clothing torn, his exposed skin covered in bruises and cuts, but to Blaine he was absolutely gorgeous.  He was alive.

“Oh… god… what…?”  Kurt looked up, eyes just as blue as the water he had expelled from his mouth.  

“I've got you Kurt… it'll be okay…”  Blaine crooned, rubbing Kurt's side gently.

Whether or not that last statement of his was a lie though was up in the air.  Both of them looked to the scene unfolding in front of them.  The white-eyed one was easily kept in place, clearly physically weaker than the other two, and Jeff had been left alone to hold him down while Santana had gone to help Karofsky who was struggling to keep the wolf from biting him.  Sam was still running, but for how long he could keep it up was questionable.  Sam was already breathing heavily while the Halfling didn't look fazed at all from the excursion.

“We… we have to help…”  Kurt coughed, spitting up more water into the mud he was laying in and then pushing himself up to a sitting position.

Blaine agreed, but how to help was another matter.  The group could run away or try to hold off the Others, but eventually they'd lose their stamina or make a mistake and that would be it.  They were just delaying the inevitable.  In all his years on the road he had never seen or heard of anyone getting away from the Others.  The closest thing he'd hear was Renegades setting up traps or going on suicide missions that caused decimation in Halfling villages - where the Halflings were still children and unable to fight back like the one they were facing.  

Kurt forced himself to stand, and Blaine could see he was less than sturdy on his feet as he rose so Blaine reached to support him with his own torn up arms as he stood alongside Kurt.  “I'm open to ideas on how to help…”

“I've got…. I…”  Kurt was looking from person to person with saucer wide eyes, stumbling on his words and ultimately saying nothing as Blaine watched him and helped keep him upright.

“It's alright Kurt… let's get you settled somewhere and then I'll go and help…”  Blaine said quietly, trying to lead Kurt towards the nearby forest.  Perhaps if he could just get Kurt hidden away he'd have a shot at surviving.

“NO!”  Kurt flailed, and Blaine with his battered arms couldn't hope to hold him back so he instead looked at his lover in silent questioning, eyebrows held high on his brow and even though he was sure they couldn't go much higher, Kurt's next move proved that they infact could.

Kurt raised both of his hands, trembling as he did, and stretched his fingertips out towards the fight unfolding ahead of them.  There was the slightest iridescent glimmer that sprang from Kurt's fingertips, making Blaine jump back in surprise and then look wide-eyed at Kurt who was all too focused on what was going on ahead of him to acknowledge Blaine's shock.

Things seemed to move in slow motion, if only for a fraction of a second, as several things happened at once.  Jeff was flung backwards off the white-eyed one, the wolf-man was shot away from Santana and Karofsky, and the Halfling ran into an invisible wall and bounced backwards off of it with a curse.

“Kurt…?”  Blaine breathed out, looking back and forth and trying to figure out just what was going on.

Kurt didn't respond though, keeping his still shaking hands held out in front of him as each side of the battle slowly seemed to recognize that they had been pulled apart by an invisible force and then kept away by an equally invisible barrier.  It was the white eyed one who seemed to understand what was happening, pulling itself off the ground and walking close to Kurt where it babbled a stream of its words.

“No….”  Kurt said, voice just as shaken as his body.  Whatever he was doing looked like it took a lot of his energy and focus to maintain, and Blaine, over the initial shock of seeing his husband use magic, reached over to put a supportive hand on Kurt's shoulder.

There was just the briefest relaxation of Kurt's muscles with the touch, but as the white-eyed one spoke again the tension returned.  Everyone was gathering on each side of the barrier, and it was clear that the side that Kurt was on was the side that included members of the community as they walked up beside him.

“I won't.”

Blaine kept his hand on Kurt's shoulder as he kept replying in the negative to long strings of dialogue from the white-eyed one.  Eventually the Halfling looked towards her talkative colleague and snarled.

“Just give it up.  There's no use.  He's picked his side…”  She turned her stormy lilac eyes back to Kurt, “... the wrong side though.”

“We're leaving.”  Kurt replied, not only telling the enemy ahead of them, but the rest of the community members at his side.  

The halfling let loose a growl that Blaine would have expected the still-in-wolf-form Other to have made and turned, walking away and sheathing her sword.  Behind her followed the Wolf beast.  Only the white eyed one remained, pulling a small token from a pocket Blaine hadn't seen on its flowing robes and setting it onto the ground in front of Kurt as far as it could reach, uttering another string of unrecognizable words before nodding to Kurt and then turning away as it followed after the Halfling and the wolf.

“So… that's it?  That seemed way too easy..”  Santana uttered, eyes locked on Kurt as Blaine looked back to her.  For saying it was easy, she looked like hell - hair pulled out in bunches from her ponytail, mud covering part of her body, and scratches up her arms from where the white eyed one must have fought her when she was trying to get it down.  

“That's it.”  Kurt affirmed in a whisper, keeping his eyes on the departing creatures who were now walking into the lake until their heads were under the water.

“What if they follow us…?”  Karofsky asked.

“They can't.”  Kurt murmured, eyes still trained out, “They can't get close to any of you now.”

“So… you've got like… superpowers.”  Jeff said, the most intrigued of the bunch, walking up beside Kurt and looking down his arms and to his fingers.  “It's like… The Invisible Woman or Jean Grey…. some kind of force field making thing… so cool!”

Kurt's eyes moved for the first time since he took up this position, shifting to Blaine and raising his brows, “Cool?”

“Yeah!”  Jeff exclaimed, apparently thinking Kurt was responding to him.  “So… is it like a deflection shield or absorption or what?”

“Uh…”  Kurt glanced over at Jeff, “I… don't… know…?”

“Fascinating…”  Jeff muttered, shaking his head and reaching over to slide his hand against the air.  If Blaine didn't know there was a barrier there, he would think Jeff was miming.

“So… what now?  We just go back to the community?  Everything is status quo?” Santana snarked.

“Nothing is status quo… but we are going back.”  Kurt said.  He dropped his hands back to his sides and slumped against Blaine with a heavy breath.  

A lot of looks were shared between everyone in the group, but one by one people turned and began the march towards home.  When it was just Blaine and Kurt left, Kurt kneeled down with a small groan and scooped up the small token left behind by the white-eyed one.  This time there was no emission of light or prick to Kurt's finger and so Blaine didn't question the gift as he helped Kurt stand back up and they followed after everyone else.

The only one who spoke as they walked was Jeff, asking question after question of Kurt in a fanboy-like effort to try and understand what they had just witnessed. There was no urgency in their walk - especially since Blaine was helping Kurt along.  He had yet to see how badly he was hurt under his clothing, but given how he was limping along and his eyes bunched up with tears every so often, Blaine assumed it wasn't pretty.  

“Wish we knew what they did with our horses…”  Sam grumbled when they stopped to take a breather after an hour.  The light was low enough now that Jeff could see the stars and figure out the quickest route back to the community by charting them.

“They killed them.  Like Pudding.  They don't have any love for domesticated animals.”  Kurt offered quietly, turning his head away from Blaine.  “Sorry…”

Blaine just shook his head.  Pudding was a great dog, but she had always done what she wanted and that included following Kurt to where they had just escaped from.  She had given her life in the hopes that it might help.  Truly mans best friend.  “It's okay Kurt… she was a smart girl.  She made her own choice.”

“It'll take us at least a week if we keep walking slowly….”  Jeff interrupted, still looking up at the sky.  “We'd actually do better to find a town and see if there's not some bikes or something we could use to move faster there.  Plus we should find a change of clothes because I'm sure I'm not the only one who ended up pissing myself back there rather than ask that shifter for a pee break and have him stand behind me while I dropped my drawers in the woods.”

“It would be good to find some medical supplies too…”  Blaine added, glancing towards Kurt and then down at his sliced arm, still covered in the strip from Kurt's shirt which was glued down with his own blood.  That would be a bitch to peel off when the time came.

“Well I don't suppose you have a map on you to help with finding a place.”  Santana huffed.

“No…”  Jeff spun in place as he looked up still, “But I do have several maps committed to memory.  If my calculations are correct then we're only about an hour away from a town directly east.”

“Of course he'd have them memorized…”  Santana grumbled, standing up.  “Well come on then.  Let's move.”

The walk seemed to take longer than an hour, but maybe it was just because Blaine was sore from head to toe, or maybe it was because, now that Jeff had pointed it out, he was smelling urine constantly and it was giving him one hell of a headache.  He wasn't going to point fingers though.  He wouldn't have wanted to pee under watch of any of those Others either - assuming they would have even granted them a bathroom break.

They made it though, Karofsky and Sam going up ahead to scout out the homes until they found one that they figured would make a good camp for the night.  Rooms were called and Blaine helped Kurt up the stairs to the only room with a bed big enough for them to share.

“I'm sorry…”  Kurt mumbled once Blaine had him laying back on the bed, removing his dirtied, torn, and bloodied clothes and leaving them discarded on the floor.

“It's okay… I told you… Pudding -”

“Not Pudding, though I'm still guilty over that as well… for not telling you about me.”  

Blaine sighed, helping slide Kurt's pants off and grimacing at the sight of purple and blue bruises mottling his skin along with several gashes that had clotted over in messy clumps.  “What was there to tell?”

“That I knew I wasn't a real human for starters?” Kurt said with a whine to his voice as the fabric was pulled over his sensitive skin.

“Kurt… god…”  Blaine sat on the edge of the bed, taking a break from stripping his now half naked lover.  He leaned over and brushed hair away from Kurt's face as he looked over the face he'd love even if it came with the pointiest of ears.  “... you think that had ever mattered to me?”

“I know if our places were switched that I'd be pissed.”  Kurt replied, pupils flickering in his eyes as he looked up at Blaine to search for the sincerity he needed.

“Well it's a good thing you're you and I'm me then.”  Blaine said simply, pressing a kiss down to Kurt's forehead, tasting like sweat and mud but still sweet regardless.

“You're a dumbass.”  

Blaine just chuckled at that and resumed getting Kurt naked for the least romantic of reasons, trying not to show Kurt through his expressions how bad he looked.  “I'm going to search for supplies Kurt… you try to rest okay?”

Kurt didn't need to be told twice, eyelids falling shut as Blaine stepped out.  From Karofsky's room there was already snoring, the same for Jeff on the couch.  The kitchen meanwhile was being raided by Santana and Sam who were openly elated about finding some cans of beans.

“Want in on this?” Sam asked when they noticed Blaine.

“No… not now anyhow… I'm going to check the houses around here for supplies.”

“Fine.  Have fun.” Santana said dismissively.

Blaine gathered as much as he could as he went from home to home.  Clothes that looked like they would fit him.  Some that looked like they would fit Kurt.  Bandages, gauze, ointment, tylenol.  Cans of soup, a bag of coffee beans, and some of those little packets of instant oatmeal. Blaine even found a phone.  

Kurt was still sleeping when he got back, so Blaine cleaned himself off with some water that had been standing in the toilet attached to this room for who knows how long and then changed.  

Just like Kurt had done for him once, Blaine cleaned Kurt off as he slept, slowly moving a wet rag over his lithe frame and then rinsing it out when it became more dirty than clean.  It took awhile, but eventually the only thing discolouring Kurt was his bruises and not the mud or dried, cracked blood he had all over him from before.  

Then Blaine set about cleaning the gashes and bandaging them over to the best of his abilities.  He mentally cursed himself for not trying to find a needle and thread because Kurt would need stitches in a couple places, but he was able to bandage those spots up tightly enough to keep the split skin as close as possible.

“Mmmm….”  Kurt woke slowly, eyes fluttering open and looking immediately towards Blaine.  “You call me angel but you're the real gift from whatever gods there might be…”

Blaine smiled to himself, finishing up the wrapping of the last bandage around Kurt's wrist.  “I found you some tylenol.  Before you even try to tell me you don't hurt and not to bother - you should know I'm ready to force it down your throat if necessary.”

Kurt grumbled but opened his mouth, letting Blaine throw a few pills in which Kurt swallowed down dry.  Kurt was one of those kind of men that would go to any lengths to avoid medical care, medication included.  Blaine was sure if Kurt had a bone sticking out of his skin he'd try to play if off as a “sprain” just to avoid having to deal with someone else taking care of him.  

He dressed Kurt then, who fell back asleep despite Blaine having to lift and reposition him in order to get the clothes on.  They were a little loose, but better that than too tight and rubbing constantly against Kurt's wounds.  The token was transferred from the pocket Kurt had been keeping it in from his ruined pants into a pocket on his new pants, and Blaine was relieved to find it didn't hurt or react to him in any way.

Blaine tended to his own wounds after that, having to bite down on his lower lip to keep from screaming out when he tore the strip of fabric off his arm and revealed the gash which began bleeding again.  He definitely needed stitching on that monstrosity and regardless of whether or not he got them, he would have one hell of a scar down the inside of his arm when it healed.  

His wrists were all bruised, and cut in the same places as Kurt's - the consequences of fighting the shackles they had been in.  He was also pretty sure he had pulled the small muscles in them, though that was impossible to know for sure until they regained enough feeling to register pain.  Without the same issues Kurt had about medicine, Blaine popped several of the pills as a preemptive strike against any new pains that might surface.

Then he joined Kurt in sleep.  The first real sleep he'd had in almost a week.

Morning came with the obnoxious chirping of birds that seemed to be the new major residents of this particular town and Blaine forced himself to get up, noting that Kurt was still sleeping like a stone on the other half of the bed, having barely moved from the night before.  Blaine quietly shoved off the bed and hobbled out of the room and down the stairs where he was met with Jeff and Sam sitting on the couch and eating some more of the canned beans they had found last night.

“Karofsky and Santana are looking around for anything we might be able to travel in.”  Jeff said, mouth still working on chewing and displaying a gross medley of brown and red as he spoke.

“Think Kurt is up to checking out any vehicles we come across?  See if he can fix them?” Sam asked.

Blaine shrugged.  “He's still sleeping.  Honestly… he's pretty banged up.  We're better off trying to find something that works right off the bat.”

Sam and Jeff nodded, and then Jeff proceeded to talk about the different routes they might take.  If they didn't find something to ride today they would travel from town to town until they did.  If they could find something, then it would be smooth sailing through to home.

Kurt joined them not long after, looking like he hadn't slept a wink and bracing himself on the staircase as he slowly made his way down until Blaine rushed over to help him, scolding him for not calling for help when he woke up.

“Like I'd do that.” Kurt grumbled, sitting down with an oomph on the couch and taking a bowl of beans offered to him by Jeff.  At least Kurt was cognizant of the fact that he was terrible at letting others help him.

“So… how do you control your powers Kurt?  Is it… like purposeful or do you have to chant something or pull up a happy memory or -”

Kurt groaned at Jeff's inquisition and winced his eyes shut, speaking through gritted teeth, “I told you yesterday.  I don't know how it works. It. Just. Does.”

Jeff shrugged and turned to Sam, “I think it must be innate, just like their language.  You know that Marvel comics has an abundance of characters that have similar powers but DC….”

Blaine tuned Jeff out, despite the fact that he would have enjoyed a good conversation about comic books, and reached over to gently pat Kurt on the knee he knew didn't have any bumps or bruises.

“We're going to be okay Kurt.  You've made sure of that, no matter who your mom or grandfather was…”

The look Kurt gave him in response was pure skepticism, and Blaine didn't get any verbal response either.  Kurt just ate his beans and then rested his weight against Blaine's side as they waited for Karofsky and Santana to return.

Regardless of what Kurt might think, Blaine knew they would be okay.  If for no other reason than that they were together again and he could hold Kurt as much as Kurt would allow him to.  That was the best peace Blaine could imagine after the hell he had just endured.